In recent months, Gov. Rick Perry has savaged the stimulus package, lambasted federal attempts at healthcare reform and hinted at secession because of federal tax-and-spend policies.

A Web site paid for by Perry’s re-election campaign says Washington’s “increasingly pervasive embrace of bailouts . . . must be stopped before it drowns us in debt and destroys our national tradition of self-reliance.” The governor has also said that accepting federal stimulus money would burden the state with programs Texas couldn’t sustain.

Then, on June 19, Perry applauded the state’s “balanced” budget, which he’d just signed, noting that lawmakers had left the state’s Rainy Day Fund untouched and had cut taxes for 40,000 small businesses.

Some people credit conservative fiscal leadership by Perry, who vetoed $288.9 million in spending, and by lawmakers for balancing the budget.

But records show that it was the much reviled federal stimulus money that saved the day.

The $182.3 billion budget did include the first spending decrease since World War II, a trumpeted $1.6 billion reduction. But the budget would have had to be slashed — and perhaps as much as half the money in the Rainy Day account could have been sucked away —were it not for an infusion of about $12.1 billion in stimulus funds. That’s nearly 7 percent of the state budget.

And before the budget writing for the 2010-11 biennium got under way, about $2.3 billion in additional stimulus money was used to plug holes in the 2009 state budget.

Notably, stimulus dollars helped balance the federal/state Medicaid program so that Texas could shift money elsewhere in the budget.

…snip…

The governor’s press office did not respond to a detailed message seeking comment.

Some conservatives said they would have preferred that the state reject the stimulus funds outright and instead make budget cuts and use the Rainy Day account.

…snip…

The governor did rebuff $555 million in stimulus for unemployment insurance. Instead, the state went into interest-free debt to cover the unemployed. Perry said accepting the money would have meant higher business taxes.

Despite his disdain for bailouts, Perry made it clear in a February letter to President Barack Obama that he would accept the state’s share. “As I have said during the debate . . . should Congress pass stimulus legislation using Texas tax dollars, I would work to ensure that our citizens receive their fair share,” he wrote.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), facing a tough primary challenge from Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R), left many puzzled when he declared his state was recession proof.

Said Perry: “As a matter of fact … someone had put a report out that the first state that’s coming out of the recession is going to be the state of Texas … I said, ‘We’re in one?'”

Paul Burka of the Texas Monthly: “This gaffe is going to stick. It is going to be national news. It will come back to haunt him in a campaign spot. If Hutchison can’t make something of it, the Democrats can. You cannot be callous and cavalier when people are losing their jobs and their homes. I don’t care how ideological the Republican base is. Unemployment in Texas just reached the 8% mark. Everybody knows someone who is suffering in these times. Everybody has lost part of their life savings. It could cost him the race.”

19 responses to “You Can’t Spell Prick Without R-I-C-K!”

one day some smart person is going to figure out how complete and utter assholes like Perry, Sanford, Palin etc get elected – why people would rather have a evil moronic a**wipe running their state rather than someone more rationale

maybe one day, someone will figure out why idiots vote against their own interests. they should pick their politicians like they pick their doctors–the smarter, the better. would they choose a surgeon, because s/he is just like them or because s/he is the smartest and most capable one around?

Jaysus, he almost makes his predecessor look like a genius. The amazing thing is that there are people that actually believe that this brain damaged demagogue has pulled off some budgetary miracle through fiscal discipline. Even disregarding the stimulus money, all of those cuts will cost more in the long run when emergency relief by the poor and indigent is needed, when schools can’t deliver education, as health care costs skyrocket to cover the uninsured and when crime rises.

Well, I guess he’ll ensure that the rabid secessionists and anti-taxers turn out teabagging each other in the primary because his own self-aggrandizement is really all that matters.

:::sigh:::
This Texan is in the house to say, worry not about Rick the Prick staying in office past this election.
If he is evil and menacing like the Wicked Witch, his GOP opponent Kay Bailey Hutchison is like the bevy of screeching, flying monkeys who scared the crap out of the witch.
She will sink her monkey talons into his gay neck until his Polo shirt and Dockers turn crimson with blood.
As bitchy as Perry is, he does not know bitchy.
Hutchison’s balls are larger, redder and more masculine than Miss Perry’s little parakeet nuts.

it’s just a matter of getting people out to vote in the primary. the secessionist teabaggers will be out full force (i wonder how many of them can vote legally). if, for argument’s sake, little ricky goodhair e. neuman (do you like my new name for him?) wins the primary, is there a democrat who can beat him?

Is there a Democrat who can beat him? No.
So far, that lunatic Kinky Friedman is the only known Democrat in the race, along with some nobodies from nowhere.
I’m hoping the birthers and teabaggers and secessionists in Texas keep it up so Kay BH can appeal to the moderate Repooplicans who are embarrassed by all the wingnut shit.
She’s a bitch, but Rick the Prick is out of his fucking mind. He looks exactly as he is. ‘Nuff said.